Undergraduate Medical Education

Scholarly Inquiry (SI) is a required component of the JeffMD curriculum of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College. It is intended to provide medical students with skills and experience that they need to become critical consumers and producers of medical knowledge. As part of an integrated curriculum, Scholarly Inquiry overlaps and synergizes with the Evidence-Based Medicine thread, the Health Systems Science thread, the Professionalism/Ethics thread, the Wellness thread, the Humanities selectives, and the Clinical Experience program.

Throughout the course of their Scholarly Inquiry experience, students benefit from enhanced learning experiences and longitudinal mentorship, and can attain knowledge and skill that are important in residency training and future practice of medicine.  They gain insights and skills in cutting-edge domains through lectures, small-group seminars, workshops, team-based and problem-based learning, and online modules. Furthermore, all students pursue their own scholarly work:

• In their first year, students develop and present a proposal for an individual or group scholarly project, and start work on its implementation.
• Optionally, for additional research time, students may choose to work on their research over the summer between the first and second years.
• In their second year, students complete their scholarly project and present their work abstract and oral/poster presentation).
• In their third year, students use their clerkship experiences to develop scholarly work ideas and assemble a portfolio of their scholarly work.
• In their fourth year, students complete a number of research selectives (including seminars, workshops, journals clubs, manuscript reviews, systematic reviews, brief rotations, etc.) and finalize their portfolio.
• Beyond their main projects, most student also typically get involved with multiple other scholarly/research projects throughout their four years in medical school.